Two
weeks ago, the Chicago White Sox, led by manager Ozzie Guillen (Oswaldo
Jose Guillen Barrios as he is known in his home town of Ocumare del Tuy,
Venezuela), swept the Houston Astros to win their first World Series since
1917. As popular as baseball is in both Venezuela and the United States,
the victory -- engineered by the first Latin American-born manager of a
World Series team -- is unlikely to be the catalyst for a warming trend in
political relations between the two countries.

The most recent
round of acrimony between the two countries began in late August when,
during a broadcast of The 700 Club, the Reverend Pat Robertson
advocated the assassination of Venezuelan Present Hugo Chavez: “I think
that we really ought to go ahead and do it... We have the ability to take
him out,” Robertson said. While many were quick to condemn his comments,
some observers suggested that they went beyond the mere ramblings of an
uninhibited televangelist; perhaps they were a trial balloon -- launched
by a longtime Team Bush supporter -- on behalf of an administration that
has shown little but disdain for the Venezuelan president.

After more than two
decades of having gotten a pass for provocative, offensive, and often
ridiculous comments, several of Robertson's religious and political
colleagues unloaded on him.

Joe Loconte, who
specializes in faith-based issues as a William E. Simon Fellow in Religion
and a Free Society at the conservative Heritage Foundation, warned that
Robertson was alienating a large segment of the American people already
suspicious about “the role of religion in public life.”

In a column in the
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Loconte suggested that, “evangelical
leaders... marginalize Robertson and his media empire -- publicly and
decisively. They should editorialize against his excesses, refuse to
appear on his television program and deny him advertising space in their
magazines. Board members should threaten to resign unless he steps down
from his public platform.”

While Robertson
issued a quasi-apology, the State Department said little.

Since Hugo Chavez
became President of Venezuela, Team Bush has done much to destabilize and
isolate the Chavez government, as well as to demonize Chavez: A
U.S.-backed coup in April 2002 failed to remove him, and a recall election
-- during which the opposition received U.S. support, particularly from
the National Endowment for Democracy -- was unsuccessful. (Since he came
to power, Chavez has held eight elections, referendums and plebiscites.)
Late last month, Israel acceded to U.S. demands that it put on hold, or
cancel, a large arms deal it had brewing with Venezuela.

In mid-September,
President Bush issued “Presidential Determination No. 2005-36,” which
branded Venezuela (and Burma) outlaw countries in the drug wars. Dan Feder,
writing for The
Narcosphere, a project of the Narco News Bulletin,
characterized the president's decision as another component of the
“Cubanization of Venezuela.”

Interestingly
enough, the presidential determination recommended that, “support for
programs to aid Venezuela's democratic institutions, establish selected
community development projects, and strengthen Venezuela's political party
system is vital to the national interests of the United States.”

While “a drug war
decertification generally implies blocking a country from international
aid and loans,” it is significant that Bush's Presidential Determination
encourages aid for Venezuela's so-called “democratic institutions,” Feder
reported. “So, while aid to Venezuelan ‘democracy’ (code for funding the
opposition to President Chavez, most recently seen in the National
Endowment for Democracy's $107,000 grant to Sumate) will be allowed to
continue, Venezuela will most likely be cut off from other forms of aid
and loans from institutions like the World Bank.”

While Bush has not
directly advocated regime change in Venezuela, he has relied on surrogates
and longtime supporters to make the administration's desires known that
Venezuela, and Latin America, would be better off without Hugo Chavez.

On October 9, the
Rev. Pat Robertson was back on television, this time as a guest on CNN's
Late Night, where he again had sharp words for Chavez. After
suggesting that Hurricane Katrina and other recent natural disasters might
be a signal that the “End Times” is hurtling down the pike, Robertson
turned his attention to the Venezuelan president.

Sans assassination
talk, Robertson linked Chavez to Iran, one of President Bush's “axis of
evil” countries, Osama bin Laden, and even to the jailed terrorist Carlos
the Jackal.

Robertson claimed
that the United States “could face a nuclear attack from Venezuela”: “The
truth is, this man is setting up a Marxist-type dictatorship in Venezuela,
he's trying to spread Marxism throughout South America, he's negotiating
with the Iranians to get nuclear material and he also sent $1.2 million in
cash to Osama bin Laden right after 9-11.” The televangelist maintained
that Chavez sent a “warm congratulatory letter to Carlos the Jackal, he's
a friend of Mommar Qaddafi,” he said. “He's made common cause with these
people that are considered terrorists.”

Although Robertson
told CNN that he had “apologized” for advocating Chavez's assassination,
and that he would “be praying for him,” he added that, “One day we will be
staring at nuclear weapons and it won't be Katrina facing New Orleans,
it's going to be a Venezuelan nuke.” And in a remark that sounded
suspiciously close to comments that set off the late August brouhaha,
Robertson pointed out that “my suggestion was, isn't it a lot cheaper
sometimes to deal with these problems before you have to have a big war.”

When asked where he
was getting his information from, Robertson said, “Well, sources that came
to me. That's what I was told.”

The sources
Robertson may have been depending on could be the same sources that fueled
a recent report in the Unification Church-owned Washington Times.
On October 17, Rowan Scarborough reported that Venezuela was beginning to
take steps toward developing nuclear weapons: “The Venezuelan government
has made overtures to various countries about obtaining nuclear
technology, according to U.S. officials, who worry that President Hugo
Chavez might be taking the first steps in a long road to develop nuclear
weaponry.”

“We are keeping an
eye on Venezuela,” one senior official, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity, told the Washington Times. “My sense is that Venezuela
has not been as successful with its nuclear entreaties with other
countries as it would have liked.” Iran is one of countries that Venezuela
has supposedly approached. The administration claims that Chavez is
developing a close relationship with the mullahs in Iran. “"They are quite
kissy-kissy with Iran,” said the U.S. official. “There is a lot of back
and forth. Iranians show up at Venezuelan things. They are both pariah
states that hang out together.”

Chavez has carried
out actions that have clearly rubbed the Bush Administration the wrong
way. He continues to be close with Cuba's Fidel Castro, and he has
stressed that Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, has a
right to control it own oil, and to determine its own affairs without the
interference of the U.S.

In April, Venezuela
“canceled the long-running IMET (International Military Education and
Training) program, which had seen Venezuelan soldiers traveling to the
U.S. for training, as well as U.S. officers giving courses in Venezuela”
According to a report by Narco News Bulletin's Dan Feder, “the
cancellation was the direct result of findings by a determined young
Venezuelan-American attorney and journalist named Eva Golinger, who had
discovered a direct connection between the program and coup-plotters in
the Venezuelan military.”

On August 31,
shortly after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and the city of
New Orleans, Citgo, the US gasoline distribution affiliate wholly owned by
the Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA),
announced on that it would donate $1 million to help in rescue efforts for
areas.

A few weeks back,
Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuelan ambassador to the U.S., accused the Bush
Administration of “protecting” Luis Posada Corriles, a right- wing Cuban
wanted on terrorism charges in Venezuela.

On October 12, at an
indigenous gathering marking Columbus Day -- renamed by Chavez as the “Day
of Indigenous Resistance” -- he accused the Sanford, Florida-based
evangelical group, New Tribes Mission, with being agents of imperialism
and suggested that the group leave the country.

With all that is on
the administration's plate these days, it is unlikely that it will turn
its full attention to Venezuela. However, if Chavez continues to assert
hegemony over its oil, continues to grow his influence amongst other Latin
American leaders, and continues to be a thorn in the side of the Bush
Administration, the U.S. could again turn its attention south.

Bill Berkowitz
is a longtime observer of the conservative movement. His
WorkingForChange.com column Conservative Watch documents the
strategies, players, institutions, victories and defeats of the American
Right.